12.22.09

NBC Chicago’s Matt Barstock reports Michael Jordan is suing a pair of Chicago grocery chains for using his likeness in full page advertisements that appeared in a recent S.I. commemorative issue marking Jordan’s entry into the Basketball Hall Of Fame.

In the Jewel ad, a pair of red and white sneakers with the number 23 on the tongues are an “inaccurate and misleading copy of Air Jordan basketball shoes,” says the lawsuit. Above the shoes, a message congratulates the “fellow Chicagoan who was ‘just around the corner’ for so many years.”
Jewel’s current slogan is “Good things are just around the corner.”

The complaint says that the Dominick‘s ad calls Jordan “a cut above” and then features a photograph of a cut of steak. At the bottom of the page is a coupon for a Rancher’s Reserve steak, a trademark of Dominick’s parent Safeway, reports the Chicago Tribune.

But there are already two steakhouses and an online steak company named after Jordan. There is no way he would ever allow his name to be used by the grocery store, “especially not to sell steaks in direct conflict with his restaurants,” as the suit says.